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Saturday, 7 May 2016

Happy Free Comic Book Day everyone! This is one of Marvel’s two offerings this year and it’s the one that teases their summer event, Civil War II. Writer Brian Bendis has talked about how the title is a bit of a misnomer (and from what I’ve seen of it so far, he’s right) but it was latched onto because of the name recognition of both Mark Millar’s bestselling book and the big Cap movie that’s currently making their studio a butt-load of money! This issue confused me about the post-Secret Wars world. When I last saw Thanos, he was encased in some kind of carbonite-type material at the end of Infinity but apparently he’s gotten free at some point (though he hasn’t gotten free of his obsession with the cosmic cube). The Avengers are at the Triskelion, the Ultimates’ HQ, which I guess somehow got saved before the Ultimates universe got blowed up? Alright.

The Avengers want to study Ulysses, an Inhuman (ugh) with the ability to see the future - and then Thanos enters Cable-style warping in with a buncha big guns. Fightin’ time! A character gets hurt (who also gets messed up in the Civil War movie) and that’s the story.

Very underwhelming stuff. Thanos’ appearance and motivations are cliched, as are the Avengers/Inhumans reaction - Thanos is the bad guy, he wants his MacGuffin as always, they fight him because they’re the good guys. The Inhumans suck because they’re substandard X-Men knockoffs but the worst part is that I’m not sure what the story of Civil War II is meant to be going by this which I thought I’d at least get an inkling of here.

The issue closes out with a Mark Waid/Alan Davis All-New All-Different Avengers story which features decades-old characters the Wasp and the Vision in the same roles they’ve always had; “new” and “different” indeed - Marvel continuing this comic’s theme of misleading titles! Wasp gives us a truncated version of how she came by her equipment and the boring story continues to leave me disinterested in this Avengers title.

Weak sauce, Marvel, but I guess it’s free so you get what you pay for! This comic was supposed to have the opposite effect but I’m now even less likely to check out Civil War II when it launches later this month. If you didn’t get your free copy, you didn’t miss much but if you’re looking to read it, it’ll be up on Comixology for free download real soon so keep an eye out there.